Wisp
by Caramel-Deer
Summary: Levy, the Persephone, is a lonely thing, tucked away by her mother on the colorful meadows. But she is not going to remain like this for much longer - for the better, or worse. Gajevy. HAPPY NEW YEAR, RUSKY!


**HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!**

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><p>She wasn't supposed to be acting this way. The cute little cherub, the cherished child of nature, breathing in so deeply as she felt the passing wisps of death? Turning around to look at the far away fires like they'd bring her anything but woe and suffering? She should not concern herself with the perils of mortals, and keep living in bliss, tucked away from all evil on the most beautiful of meadows...<p>

That was what Jet and Droy said, over and over again once they learned of her fascination. But for decades before _that_ happened, they danced and twirled around her, singing the same old song that made the plants dance along with them and persuaded the colorful butterflies to frolic around her. The steps were different every other day, and every day she patiently tried to learn the correct order of jumps and claps of feet along with them. There was a smile on her face and sweat on her brow as she was closer and closer to reaching her goal, and when she was finally ready to try to dance herself, the music and dancing _stopped_, the fauns fell to the ground, and all of the fluttering bugs swarmed at the marble hands of her mother.

_Demeter_.

Her eyes were wise and crinkled, rusty like the earth itself; her figure covered by linen and trailing ivy. There were grasses and flowers in her hair - _pasque, poa, tulips, wheat,_ - and a hard look to her face, though sometimes her mouth would quirk up into a small, fair smile_._ She sparked life and beauty wherever she went, working tirelessly to protect what she could destroy in a matter of minutes. Moving freely like the wind, scattering orchis and ginger and raising blizzards of dandelion seeds, she was _beautiful_.

She also left her daughter trapped on meadows, disappeared for days and then came back right when she was just starting to actually enjoy herself - whisking her away with a shout more resembling a goose than a prideful goddess. _A god is headed this way!_ And every time it happened, and it happened _endlessly_, Levy would find herself dragged by the hand like a baby and concealed inside those ticklish robes, before being quickly deposited by some other hill and doused in more flowers.

It's like the upper gods had nothing better to do than to ravish her into utter stupidity. Levy loved her mother like no one else in the world, but ever since she'd learned to coax her two friends to tell her more about the outside, the obsessive hovering served as nothing but a source of growing bitterness and, quite ironically, an almost unquenchable curiosity regarding other immortals. Levy, the _'Persephone'_, was pampered like a little princess, _true_. But she was not little. Not weak, useless, small or dependant either. She was _lonely_, and while Demeter meant well, she suspected she wasn't going to change her ways any time soon.

And that made her take things into her own hands, maybe search for a way to convince the older goddess that she would be alright to receive some degree of freedom. And that, in turn, made her notice something _particular_ - something that she'd spent _years_ discreetly researching.

No matter how often her mother would bring her out of the way of others, there was one man she couldn't completely elude. He wasn't present in the fields, or the seas, or the sky. The only indication he was even nearby was a single chill, zapping at her feet from the ground, jumping up from her thighs to her belly and tickling along her neck with an eruption of goosebumps. The first time she'd ever felt it was during an enthusiastic spin, and it was sudden enough to make her fall on her face into a clump of little gerberas.

That pleasurable thrum was, as she later found out, only ever felt by the miserable and dying. Considering the meager circle of her acquaintances, it ruled out just about everyone - leaving her to revel in her newfound discovery as much as she'd pleased.

So, just in case Jet and Droy got worried over her _daydreaming_ too much, she made up a half truth for them - a newfound fascination with all the things dark, ghostly and scary - before making them promise not to tell her mother about it. In the end, it even worked in her favor - they frequently let her know what they thought about her poking her nose into such uncomfortable topics, but somewhere along the line, they'd always end up telling her something new and dangerously _wonderful_.

That god, the man she grew more curious about every other day, was the king of Hades. He was, in their own words, _"deadly and frightening"_, just like the lands he was named after, housing the massive number of mortals whose lives had already ended, and an even larger amount of riches. With the Helm of Darkness that could make him invisible even to her mother, a three headed monster guarding the gates of his kingdom, _odd_, but loyal servants working in the realm under his command - and most importantly, his own strength, wits, and determined pride - he was a person that made her practically quiver with eagerness to know him, if she ever got the chance.

He was often referred to simply as _Hades_, or _Pluto_, or _Agesandros_, but Droy claimed that a friend of his friend overheard his true name started with _'Ga'._ Levy never heard her mother say anything like this, though she once caught her muttering about the _'Dark Zeus'_, and it could've been him. He was probably the one she called a fool too, though Demeter used this phrase a lot.

There was no sun down there in his world. Sometimes, she wondered just how did pomegranate and narcissus, how poplar, asphodel and cypress had managed to survive in a place like that. Away from her mother, away from Helios, yet bearing fruit and blooming like every other sun-showered apple tree or little gerbera? It was mind boggling. It made her want to know even _more_.

Jet might have claimed that if she so much stepped into Hades, she'd wither and burn into a crisp, Droy might have been obsessing over the starvation she'd face if she was ever unfortunate enough to get lost there, but over time, the young goddess found herself about as fixated on the king of the underworld as her own mother was hovering over herself. Every time she felt the pleasant chill of the other side curl around her ankle she couldn't help but hum and wonder just how did that _'Ga'_ person fare. Was he happy? Was he healthy, hiding under the ground like that? Did he know that she was thinking about him?

Sometimes, with a bright red blush on her face, she'd imagine him coming up to her mother and telling her how he wanted to spend time with them, somehow making her listen to him even as she gruffly disregarded his words, and gaining enough acceptance to recline together in some pleasant shade and share the various stories of his kingdom. Other times, it was _herself_ finally breaking out of the smothering arms of her mother, like some little bird making a grand escape and squeezing past the wicker bars of its cage. She came up with one complicated scheme to meet the lord of the underworld after another, before they all became so ridiculous she couldn't help but laugh at her own silliness.

In short, little _Persephone_ was completely unaware of the hidden scheme, and played along with it flawlessly. Through the days and nights, she remained stubbornly loyal to both Demeter and Hades, so conflicted between attachment to her family and unfathomable curiosity that she couldn't have possibly foreseen the trap she was marching into... Until it was too late.

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><p>For all the days and nights Levy spent wondering about the underworld, she really had no idea how a narcissus looked. To her, it was a small, pale thing. The plant she saw, however, was just another thin stem with a large, crooked flower on top of it, with six white petals bunching around a bright yellow corona. It did not look threatening at all. In fact, she couldn't help but marvel at its delicacy, reaching out to run her fingers along it's edges and then pluck it from the ground to weave into her hair.<p>

She and her friends were high in the mountains of some large island, but since her mother claimed it to be both in Sicily and Crete at the same time, Levy wasn't sure where exactly. The huge field where they landed was, at a certain point, melting away into a pretty lake that she, along with Jet and Droy, dove into just moments into their stay, and from the other ended at a rocky mountain face that was quite impossible to scale. Now, the two fauns were drying off on a pile of rocks that fell off its surface, bickering over the looks of the prettiest nymph they met a few days earlier, with their flutes dropped and forgotten somewhere in the purple clover growing around their makeshift seats.

Levy, meanwhile, pulled the dress back over her wet body and studied that odd flower she'd spotted at the water bank, carefully running her hand up and down it's stem, before grabbing it as close to the ground as she could and, like the countless times before, gently pulling the flower out.

And setting all hell loose. Literally.

The first thing she heard after that was a frightening, deafening _crunch_. Then, before she could even blink, the ground at her feet swelled, warped and _exploded_, sending her flying along with a rain of mud and dead flowers. The goddess shrieked, feeling her heart leap into her throat as she closed her eyes and shielded her head. However, before she was hit with the full force of the blast, the air itself had suddenly, _swiftly _wound itself around her like a pair of steel arms, ceasing her fall at once - along with a deep, amused rumble that made her skin prickle with gooseflesh.

"_That was close_."

_What was going on?!_

The rocks and pebbles still fell around her, whistling past her head but, much to her horror, not quite hitting the ground. Instead, they were swallowed by the huge, black _pit_ that now stretched beneath her feet. For a split second Levy just stared, hypnotized, into its depths, before realizing that aside from it, there wasn't much _else_ to look at. All around her was _nothing, _just the floating dust and the faint movement of water, falling into the depths of earth in her place.

What she felt, though, was the feel of phantom arms wrapped snugly around her body, holding her against what seemed to be worn, metal plates. A _heartbeat_, too, thrumming behind the cold metal, catching her attention and making her look up to where she guessed the face of her rescuer was. She didn't budge, then, trying not to fidget or look back down too much, only peeking to the side when she caught her friends from the corner of her eye - rising from amongst the rubble with pained groans and rubbing at their bruises. She was sure that if she'd look down the pit again, she'd lose her nerve - she was already starting to lose it as it was, with the snaps of bliss branching out from beneath the gripping fingers at her hip.

Those sparks, crawling their way up in an onslaught of licks to her bruised skin, were entirely too familiar. But even then, if she hadn't felt them curling around her body so many times, she'd never think it possible. Because there was literally _no way_. Why would _he_, of all people, be in this place?

"You..." She murmured softly, straining her eyes to see past the illusion she knew he often used. "It's _you_, isn't it?"

_Hades_, the king of the underworld himself.

The hand around her thighs loosened its hold on her, leaving her pinned uncomfortably against his engraved breastplate, with her bare feet dangling above the abyss and gripping his shoulders for leverage. But just a second later, the hard nothingness beneath her fingers became a cluster of shadows - that in turn slowly transformed into a rough, frightening, _handsome_ man, clad in black and rusted armor. His long hair spilled from the confines of the Helm of Darkness as he slowly removed it from his head, before tucking the legendary object under his arm, just beneath one of his massive shoulder plates.

His crimson eyes watched with amusement as she stared at him in shock, before he looked at their feet, where the strings of shade hardened into engraved golden plates. Soon enough, shaping around them was a packed chariot and a four of black horses, equally as large and intimidating as their master - shaking their heads and moving their weight about, even though there was no ground beneath their hooves to support them. And they were silent like phantoms.

Orphaneus, Aethon, Nyctaeus and Alastor.

"They're _real_." The goddess breathed out before she could stop herself, and then squeaked, ripping her hands away from the line of small, ivory skulls embedded over his collarbones to cover her mouth. Looking back at the God of the underworld, she was mortified to see him stare at her with a slightly surprised expression. "I'm _sorry_, I-"

Then he snorted, and the coils of electricity on her body relaxed into something light and bubbling that made her shiver. She blushed heavily as the man readjusted his hold on her, still nowhere near settling her to her feet, and focused his gaze on her good naturedly.

"I guess they are." He smirked at her, but then his grin became a bit darker. "Though I'm honestly surprised that the first thing you can think about inside of my chariot, hovering over the gateway to the underworld I just created, are my _horses_."

"You... You _what_?" Levy squeaked, eyes widening.

He just raised an eyebrow at her, before looking somewhere above her head. Following his gaze, she ignored the many satchels and bags tied to the edges of his chariot, before stopping on a carved weapon holder and the thin, black trident held upright within its grasp.

"I think you know what _this_ is." He rumbled into her ear, and she couldn't help but stare mutely at another of his signature items - a weapon that could pass the very boundaries between worlds. "Come on... I want you to figure it out yourself. I'm pretty sure you can do it just fine."

And she did. Looking from the Trident and the Helm of Darkness to the Golden Chariot and in the general direction of the pit he'd summoned. Where the narcissus once grew... And where she plucked it from the ground mere minutes ago.

"You... you did this?" Levy muttered softly, looking him in the eyes in confusion. "You waited for me to pick up that flower? And when I did, you came here and... and caught me?..." She muttered, trailing off. Her brows furrowed, "Why?"

"I have," Hades agreed with a snort, watching her expression closely for a few moments, before shrugging. "As to why, well... I could ask you the same thing."

"What do you-" Levy squeaked when he shifted her again, the tickles along her body turning into a deep _thrum_ as he leaned down, giving her a close and unobstructed view of his crimson eyes. She felt, more than heard, the grunt that followed her exclamation - like he was distracted - but then, there was a pause, and a huff.

"...I want to ask you a question."

Levy wasn't sure if she'd heard him correctly. "You tricked and caught me for a question?"

"I set up a trap to catch you when Demeter wasn't watching." He corrected calmly, "I baited you, ripped the ground from underneath your feet and send your nannies flying_._ Now, I have you in my grasp, holding you at the mouth of hell_._" As he said this, his eyes narrowed, his forehead creasing.

"So yes, I wanted to ask you a question. And fast. Your mother may be coming back soon to take you away, and I guess she won't be too happy about the situation."

"No, I guess she won't." Levy mumbled.

His eyes narrowed at that, "It's not like you are in any position to oppose me. Though I'll have to admit, I find it quite surprising that you're not as upset as I expected. _So..._"

Levy squeaked as his arms flexed and he brought her up and high above his head, his fingers wrapping delicately around her ribcage to hold her better. Her tiny frame cast a shadow over his face while he looked at her, and as she stared back in disbelief, an odd thought had struck her - that the touch was almost intimate. It made her brows furrow, cheeks darkening in embarrassment.

"May I?"

Honestly, she didn't know why she wasn't yelling for help or fighting her way out of his grasp by now. Her mother _could_ beat him into the ground if she so wished, and they were both very aware of that fact. Actually, just the knowledge of their meeting would, without a doubt, sent her in a chase after his head. He has schemed against her daughter, trapped her, and hurt her friends - just as he'd said. She'd get furious for less.

But now that she looked at him, waiting for her word, she couldn't bring herself to do that.

He looked serious and perplexed, but not mad - just as she was shocked, but not afraid. After so long, the snaps of emotion rolling against her seemed pleasantly familiar... dare she say, more familiar than Demeter's touch.

And it was the man she hovered over for _years_. The only god she could ever hope to meet without her mother knowing. The source of her curiosity, the fuel to her dreams and her only cure for the lonely days on the flower fields. He was vastly different than she imagined him to be - from his appearance to his manners - but the most important thing was still there. He wasn't furious. He wasn't cold, or disgusted, or made fun of her.

There was a chance for them to understand each other.

The goddess lowered her lashes and looked away, taking a deep breath as she concentrated. What he set up wasn't really a trap. It was a chance to communicate with him in person.

"Go on. Ask away." She murmured quietly.

"_What do you see in me?"_ He questioned immediately, head tilting and eyes narrowing as his thumbs stoked along her sides. "What has you so damn _interested_? Where in the bloody depths of Tartarus did you get the idea to snoop around looking for information about me? My name? My whereabouts? My _horses_? Following my trail every time you had the chance... What the _hell_, woman?!"

She couldn't keep the blush off her face if she tried. "You knew."

"How was I supposed _not_ to know?" he growled, "I've _watched_ you, ever since you started watching, too. Once, I've even considered you a threat to the Underworld. Later I decided that it was just a silly game of yours, a hobby that would eventually pass and you'd leave me alone... but you didn't. You schemed, you lied, and you never let go. Even now, you're not nearly as upset as you probably should, and... I don't _understand_."

"You..." Levy repeated slowly, trying not to look at him as the redness started spreading from her face to her neck. "You don't understand?"

"Just as the judges, the servants, and the guardians don't." He rumbled agitatedly, and her eyes widened. "So, how about you _enlighten_ me? Enlighten all of us? _What is it that you want from me?_"

"What do I want from you?..." The young woman mumbled, biting her lip and wiggling in his grasp.

"_Yes_. Gods, yes." He huffed, looking at her attentively. "You're driving us all mad - Lily even claims you fell in _love_ with me! That's ridiculous. Impossible. I have to draw a line somewhere before that goes too far, and to do that, I need you to tell me why you're so damn _persistent_."

_Love?_

She couldn't help but move her lips to accommodate the word. Even silent, it felt weird on her tongue, and as she finished, she couldn't help but turn away from him.

That's right, she enjoyed and wanted his _company_. She wanted his friendship, to know more about him and let him know more about herself. She'd learned to rely on the idea of him to keep the loneliness away. Love was something a bit different. It was not necessary there.

But even putting love aside, she slowly realized how hard it would be to answer him. Convincing him of her desire without sounding like a total lunatic and being thrown out of his chariot to never see him again? No way. Because _that's_ what she'd sound like. So, brows furrowing as she mulled over her words carefully, she'd made no sound at all.

"Oi. Can you answer me?" He shook her a bit, with a change to the zap, branching out coldly on her skin and making her shiver. "Come on. It's not that hard, is it? Just spit it out and let's-"

But then, the air was split by a frantic melody that had her jump and him hiss out, "Looks like out time is up."

Whipping around to look at the edge, Levy couldn't help but gasp as she saw her friends, flutes secure in both hands, blowing so hard into the instruments that their faces were turning purple. Under any and every normal circumstances, she'd be filled with joy at the sight of them being fine and trying their hardest to rescue her - or the subtle quaking of the earth that signified they'd been _heard_ - but now, in the middle of straightening things out with the startled god at her side, she only felt a rising fit of panic. They were both right, at this rate Demeter was going to go right after his head.

She'd never see him again.

"Shit." Hades cursed, shifting her again until he freed one hand to grasp at the reins of his chariot. Levy tightened her hold on the line of small, ivory skulls embedded into the metal over his collarbones - the bones looked deceptively... pretty. She didn't have the time to contemplate the morbid ornaments, because the quaking was getting louder, and fast - yet Hades seemed reluctant in letting her go.

Then she'd heard the thudding, the snaps and creaks and whining, making her look up at him in confusion, and then follow his glare to his horses.

_Why wasn't he letting her go?_

"What are you doing?" His voice was low, and as she opened her mouth to ask the first question, his hold around her tightened, until it felt like the cord of steel that secured her during her fall. "Hang on, if you value that head of yours!"

Then the great chariot finally snapped into motion - to slam against his feet and yank at his arms - and less than a second later she was flying _again_. The fading sun, the darkening sky, the quaking earth - it all flashed before her eyes as she plunged - along with her friends, calling for her mother to save her. The shrill, frantic melody that escaped their instruments rang in her ears and made the horses neigh angrily, but a split second later the cluster of plants and gales lunging for the chariot just... disappeared.

Ducking from Demeter's rage at the last moment, they fell into the depths of the earth. And _everything_ - the sound, the light, the smell of flowers - was suddenly replaced by the warm, humid gusts of air and the sweet smell of earth.

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><p>Levy stared blankly at the darkness outside of the chariot, where the sunshine was cut off by the ground sealing up, with only some faint, unsettling sounds of shattering stone to see them off. She hesitantly raised her hand from his armor to her hair, flying about her head in a frenzy, and forced it to tuck the strands behind her ear. Then she looked at the man next to her - only to realize that she couldn't see. It was pitch black around. She was underground. She was underground on the way to-<p>

"W-What did you just... What did you _do_?"

"What does it look like?" His voice was as quiet as a purr, but in the quiet of the underground, she'd heard him perfectly.

"It looks like you stole me away to Hades." She whispered, licking her lips but finding her mouth dry. When her hands were done with patting down her hair, she found them cold and clammy as well. "...Are now."

"Once again, you've seen right through me." He huffed.

This was unreal._"...Why?"_

"What was I supposed to do?" When she heard the quiet clank of armor, she hadn't expected to see two shining eyes stare at her from the enveloping darkness. "You haven't answered. That was my only chance."

"I needed time." Levy mumbled out. "Just a bit. One moment."

"That moment would've come at a _great_ price." Hades snorted, "One I wasn't about to pay. It's easier just to take you away somewhere for a second to properly hear you out. Just tell me now and I'll drop you off somewhere in under five minutes - you'll never see me again, too, _she'll_ make sure of that. But until you tell me, you're stuck here."

"But that's..." Levy stuttered, blinking disorientedly as a small oil lamp lit itself by the packages and illuminated the inside of the chariot. "That's..." She turned her face away, trying to collect her thoughts. "On the other hand, it _is_ a bit difficult to explain."

"Thought as much." He sighed, snapping the reins gently as he carefully set her down to her feet, though he kept his hand around her shoulders. "There's no use worrying about that right now anymore, though. You've got all the time in the world. I can locate you at my quarters for a moment, and my court will be more than happy to clothe you and feed you... maybe even croak out a song or two. They like you."

"Am I supposed to be glad?" She snorted at that, sparing one wistful look at the darkness behind them.

"No, you're not." He replied seriously. "I didn't expect this would end up like that. I... I apologize."

"It was a mess... _Is_."

"I agree."

An odd sort of silence settled over them, broken only by the rattle of the chariot and the beating of horse hoofs. Levy slowly crouched and slid towards a pile of bags and satchels, settling down against it and wrapping her arms around her knees. Here, in the imposing chariot, she should have felt small and scared, but actually she only felt small. And really, really _confused_. The floor was smooth and quite slippery, with the things that fell out of the bags bouncing around randomly, such as a handful of half-sprouted seeds or a tiny carved bone or two. With Hades in his enormous full body armor and flowing, ripped cape taking more than half of the space available - and with his possessions almost as much - she still had a good chunk of space to stretch comfortably and not fear falling off. So she did, and tried to will the sense of loss and unease with simple, logical truths around her.

She was kidnapped, but no particular harm happened to her. She'll be returned when she'll explain herself, and hopefully convince him to stay as her friend. That made her frown. If Demeter was after his head, it would be harder than ever to convince her to give him a chance. It got even more problematic when she reminded herself that neither Demeter nor her fauns had any idea what was going on. In their eyes, she was shaken up, loaded on the chariot, and carried off underground to participate in god-knows-what. If they didn't react as much as they did, she'd actually be surprised.

On the other side, she was going to Hades, on a chariot from Hades, with the help of horses of Hades and a trident of Hades. But now that she was here, the knowledge she gathered over the years seemed to dull in comparison with the real thing, especially when the warm, humid tunnel started to fill with veins of fire or a handful of glowing crystals. The underworld was a place of legend, and legends held as much truth as superstition. The king assured her his court liked her, but beyond a warm welcome, she didn't really know what to expect.

"I've said there's no use worrying right now." The god at her side murmured, tall and proud and entirely in his element. She wondered if she looked worse than she felt, and how much she had to stand out in the darkness. Pale and blue and all huddled up, she had to look quite pathetic.

Suddenly, the king shifted, before securing the rains and clicking at his horses, catching her attention when he crouched at her side. Reaching for the satchel wrapped around his hips, he pulled out a flower - the narcissus - and offered it to her with a grunt.

"You... You dropped this."

She couldn't help but smile a bit at that, "What makes you think I want it?"

"Before it triggered a magical portal, you thought it was quite pretty."

"Maybe I did." She tilted her head, giving the delicate plant a sidelong glance. "I guess I did."

She didn't move though, and he shrugged, taking his hand away. However, when the plant started wilting rapidly in his grasp, she reached up and patted at his shoulder plate sharply.

"Okay, give me that."

"Thought you didn't want it?" The corners of his mouth twitched when he caught her frowning.

"If... If you give me your name along with it, I will," she said seriously, and for the first time, it was his eyes that widened in surprise.

It was quite the ridiculous question to ask - the real names were a thing of secrecy and intimacy, with only a few freely giving away theirs. But she'd been curious for long, and after all she'd been through, she might've just deserved it.

But she hadn't just expected him to... hand her the narcissus and stand up. Or look down at her in all of his regal glory and introduce himself.

"I am Hades, king of the underworld. My name is _Gajeel_. In return, I ask to give me yours, Persephone."

Nobody has ever introduced himself to her before, nor asked to introduce herself back. So Levy stood up much like he did, head held high so she could look at his face. And then she said her name.

"Well then, Levy," He hummed, the dark tunnel they were going through widening into an open ravine, filled with colorful light and fascinating rock formations and, mind-bogglingly, two or three cottages, surrounded by small fields and a small group of black cattle, "you'd better prepare yourself. From now on, it's gonna get a bit crazy."

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><p><strong>HAPPY NEW YEAR, RUSKY! YOU ARE THE SUPREME GAJEVY QUEEN AND ONE MY MOST ADORED ARTISTS EVER!<strong>

**You guys have little to no idea how difficult but rewarding this thing was to write. I'm pretty sure the ending is rushed and makes almost no connection with the beginning, there are some mistakes I'll have to correct in a few days, and there are 2762 other problems, but I am so far the point of caring I'm just endlessly glad I've finished this thing.**

**The thing is, I've been writing it for around **_**half of a year**_**. I rewrote certain parts of it four to five times just be sure it's the best I can do, not to seem too OOC (I bet at the end it might still be :), not to make the relationship improbable or rushed etc. - and a mass of other stuff. Add difficult school stuff, mental breakdowns and my newfound obsession with Nanatsu no Taizai (check it out!), and there were periods of time where I would write two sentences and delete five ;w;**

**The initial idea of this fic is the 100% perfect and amazing Hades and Persephone AU and just how much Gajeel and Levy fit those roles. It's practically uncanny. So when Rusky said she'd like to see this AU, I said I'll make it. Might have been a **_**lot**_** more than I could chew at the time, but here I am, ~half a year later, with the 99% finished product and feeling so proud of myself I might just explode.**

**The original involved a lot of snarking at each other from our beloved dense nuggets and Gajeel being an evil shadow lord who gets changed for the better by Levy's amazing, big heart, but since this is faaaar too 2k12/2k13 I wanted to try something else. That change came when I've found my favorite poem ever - "Persephone Lied", that involved an element of jealously from the powerless Persephone to the supreme Demeter and how she found Hades to be exciting. There was also an element where she hated Demeter. But ever since I decided to make Porlyusica her mother, I toned it down (tried to tone it down :.) to an overwhelming boredom and loneliness, because the actual Demeter was often quite overbearing and secluded her from everyone else (not that I blame her *shudders*). And I just love Porly, though she has to have the role of the unhealthily overprotective lady :/. **

**So I've cooked up a plot where Gajeel is the only one she can connect to without Porly noticing, but he actually knows what she's doing, and they get obsessed with each other, and eventually meet each other and go to Hades - Levy's loneliness disappears (she even unlocks her powers), and she sides with Gajeel when Demeter wants her back. In the original Gajeel was much more daring thou, and as soon as he introduced himself he kissed her (a lot). I later edited it out because it felt too rushed for their relationship. The kidnapping was made into an escape later, too.**

**Gajeel's powers/plants/court as Hades are listed on . Lily made a little mention in the story - he's not Kerberos though, but rather ****Askalaphos, his gardener, who is transformed into a screech-owl by Demeter and becomes his familiar. Because flying. And familiars.**

**I've made up the weird pleasing touch powers, the magic flutes and the name/title dynamic on my own. The first was supposed to make a connection between Gajeel and Levy, to make a possibility for Levy to understand him - to make him more expressive with them, and, well... I may have planned to make a smutty chapter later, set in Hades. **_**Imagine**_**.**** (But right now I'm settling down on what we have above .;;;). I also planned to involve passion flowers into the story somehow because I really like those flowers and they symbolize quite a morbid thing. The first part dealt with narcissus thou, and they hadn't made it. Gajeel's armor reminds me a bit of Spartan x Warhammer 40k armors. Especially the improbable shoulder plates ;w;**

**I could talk about this AU forever, but now I'll settle with the fact it's 10 p.m. and I actually finished it in 2014 :D Also, I doubt anyone would want to hear my ramblings, heheh.**

**Sooo, that is all. Now I can focus on other stuff and show my face to Rusky again! Also, I hope this fic made you happy ;w; We'll need all the positivity we can get for chapter 414 D:**

**C-D**


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